End of day 3. Another full day. Left Lebanon and headed to explore the rest of MO. Visited marshfield hometown of Edwin Hubble and saw a quarter sized replica of the Hubble telescope. Saw a lot of old motel signs and drive on single alignments of the highway. Cannot image what it was like on a one way road with cars coming at you all the time. Thinking they basically drove half on the road and half on the shoulder at all times. Stopped at the Bass Pro Shop headquarters...what a destination that is! The back road driving really gives you a feel for Americana and how go go go we all are today. I am glad I was able to take this time off to experience a part of our history that is not appreciated enough my many.
Had another memorable stop today. We visited with Gary Turner at his Gay Parita station. Interesting character and John got along with him well. He loves to see kids on the mother road because they are our next generation and need to appreciate our country's history. Chatted with Gary about 45 minutes and got a bunch of pictures and his autograph too. :) Had an interesting visit to Red Oak 2. It seems to be a town that was relocated and hard to describe without seeing pictures. Once I can get them uploaded, I will post them. John saw his first drive-in movie theater on our way to Joplin. Of course our visit included a drive through the devastated area and wow cannot imagine what it looked like In that area just over a year ago after the tornado hit. You can see clearly the area that was hit. We stumbled across the Extreme Makeover homes and they look just like they looked on tv. There are other homes going up in the same street. The neighborhood appears to be rebuilding which is good to see.
After Joplin we finally made our way through KS....all 13 miles of it. Drove over the rainbow bridge outside Galena KS which is on a short one-way leg of the highway. Hoped to check out a restaurant I saw on tv but they were closed. So, into OK we drove. Visited Commerce, home of the Commerce Comet, Mickey Mantel. Visited Claremore and the Will Rogers Memorial before making our way to the Catoosa Whale and Tulsa for the night. Found a nice hotel, a chain with an indoor pool. Hard to find the mom and pop places with the cool outdoor pool in the big city.